A Crown of Swords

by Jordan, Robert

  Those windows and what they showed—what they did not show—had caught her eyes so quickly that it took her a moment to realize people were there already. A fine thing! Had they wished, they could have killed her before she knew. Not that they showed any sign of hostility, but you could never be too careful with wetlanders.

  A spindly old man with deep-set eyes was sitting at his ease atop one of the chests; what little hair remained to him was white, and his dark face had a kindly look, though a full dozen earrings altogether and a number of thick gold chains around his neck gave his expression a strange twist in her eyes. Like the men above, he was barefoot and bare-chested, but his breeches were a dark blue silk, and his long sash a bright red. An ivory-hilted sword was thrust through that sash, she noted with disdain, as well as two curved daggers to match.

  The slender, handsome woman with her arms folded and a grimly foreboding frown was more worthy of notice. She wore only four earrings in each ear, and fewer medallions on her chain than Malin din Toral, and her clothing was all in reddish-yellow silk. She could channel; Aviendha knew that, this close. She must be the woman they had come for, the Windfinder. And yet it was another who held Aviendha’s eye. And for that matter, Elayne’s and Nynaeve’s and Birgitte’s.

  The woman who had looked up from an unrolled map on the table might have been as old as the man by her white hair. Short, no taller than Nynaeve, she looked like someone who had once been stocky and was beginning to go stout, but her jaw thrust forward like a hammer, and her black eyes spoke of intelligence. And power. Not the One Power, just that of someone who said “go” and knew that people would go, yet she had it strongly. Her breeches were brocaded green silk, her blouse blue, and her sash red like the man’s. The stout-bladed knife in a gilded sheath tucked behind that sash had a round pommel covered with red and green stones; firedrops and emeralds, Aviendha thought. Twice as many medallions hung from her nose chain as from Malin din Toral’s, and another, thinner gold chain connected the six rings in each of her ears. Aviendha barely kept her hand from going to her own nose again.

  Without a word the white-haired woman came to stand in front of Nynaeve, rudely examining her from head to toe, frowning in particular at Nynaeve’s face and the Great Serpent ring on her right hand. She took no time about it, and with a grunt moved on from her ruffled object of study to give Elayne the same quick, intense scrutiny, and then Birgitte. At last she spoke. “You are not an Aes Sedai.” Her voice sounded like rocks tumbling.

  “By the nine winds and Stormbringer’s beard, I am not,” Birgitte replied. Sometimes she said things even Elayne and Nynaeve seemed not to understand, but the white-haired woman jumped as if she had been goosed, and stared a long moment before turning to frown up at Aviendha.

  “You are not Aes Sedai, either,” she grated after the same examination.

  Aviendha drew herself to her full height, feeling as though the woman had rummaged through her garments and twirled her about to look at her better. “I am Aviendha, of the Nine Valleys sept of the Taardad Aiel.”

  The woman gave twice the start she had for Birgitte, black eyes going wide. “You are not garbed as I expected, girl” was all she said, though, and strode back to the far end of the table, where she planted her fists on her hips and studied them all again, much as she might have some strange animal she had never seen before. “I am Nesta din Reas Two Moons,” she said at last, “Mistress of the Ships to the Atha’an Miere. How do you know what you know?”

  Nynaeve had been working on a scowl since the woman first looked at her, and now she snapped, “Aes Sedai know what they know. And we expect more in the way of manners than I’ve seen so far! I certainly saw more the last time I was on a Sea Folk ship. Maybe we should find another, where the people don’t all have sore teeth.” Nesta din Reas’ face grew darker, but Elayne of course stepped into the breech, removing her cloak and laying it over the edge of the table.

  “The Light illumine you and your vessels, Shipmistress, and send the winds to speed you all.” Her curtsy was moderately deep; Aviendha had become a judge of these things, for all she thought it looked the most awkward thing any woman could ever do. “Forgive us if there have been words in haste. We mean no disrespect to one who is as a queen to the Atha’an Miere.” That with a speaking look for Nynaeve. Nynaeve only shrugged, though.

  Elayne introduced herself again, and the rest of them, to strange reactions. That Elayne was Daughter-Heir produced none, though that was a high position among the wetlanders, and that she was Green Ajah and Nynaeve Yellow received sniffs from Nesta din Reas and sharp looks from the spindly old man. Elayne blinked, taken aback, but she went on smoothly. “We have come for two reasons. The lesser is to ask how you mean to aid the Dragon Reborn, who according to the Jendai Prophecy you call the Coramoor. The greater is to request the help of this vessel’s Windfinder. Whose name,” she added gently, “I regret I do not yet know.”

  The slender woman who could channel reddened. “I am Dorile din Eiran Long Feather, Aes Sedai. I may help, if it pleases the Light.”

  Malin din Toral looked abashed, too. “The welcome of my ship to you,” she murmured, “and the grace of the Light be upon you until you leave his decks.”

  Not so Nesta din Reas. “The Bargain is with the Coramoor,” she said in a hard voice, and made a sharp cutting gesture. “The shorebound have no part of it, except where they tell of his coming. You, girl, Nynaeve. What ship gave you the gift of passage? Who was his Windfinder?”

  “I can’t recall.” Nynaeve’s airy tone was at odds with the stony smile she wore. She had a deathgrip on her braid, too, but at least she had not embraced saidar again. “And I am Nynaeve Sedai, Nynaeve Aes Sedai, not girl.”

  Putting her hands flat on the table, Nesta din Reas directed a stare at her that reminded Aviendha of Sorilea. “Perhaps you are, but I will know who revealed what should not have been revealed. She has lessons of silence to learn.”

  “A split sail is split, Nesta,” the old man said suddenly, in a deep voice much stronger than his bony limbs suggested. Aviendha had taken him for a guard, but his tone was that of an equal. “It might be well to ask what aid Aes Sedai would have of us, in days when the Coramoor has come, and the seas rage in endless storms, and the doom of the Prophecy sails the oceans. If they are Aes Sedai?” That with a raised eyebrow to the Windfinder.

  She answered quietly, in a respectful voice. “Three can channel, including her.” She pointed at Aviendha. “I have never met anyone so strong as they. They must be. Who else would dare wear the ring?”

  Waving her to silence, Nesta din Reas turned that same iron gaze on the man. “Aes Sedai never ask aid, Baroc,” she growled. “Aes Sedai never ask anything.” He met her gaze mildly, but after a moment she sighed as though he had stared her down. The eyes she aimed at Elayne were no whit softer, though. “What would you have of us . . .” She hesitated. “. . . Daughter-Heir of Andor?” Even that sounded skeptical.

  Nynaeve gathered herself, ready to launch into an attack—Aviendha had had to listen to more than one tirade sparked by the Aes Sedai back in the Tarasin Palace and their habit of forgetting that she and Elayne were Aes Sedai too; someone not even Aes Sedai denying it might bring the shedding of blood—Nynaeve gathered herself up and opened her mouth. . . . And Elayne silenced her with a touch on the arm and a whisper too low for Aviendha to hear. Nynaeve’s face was still crimson, and she looked about to pull her braid out slowly by the roots, yet she held her tongue. Maybe Elayne could make peace in a water-feud.

  Of course, Elayne could not be pleased, when not only her right to be called Aes Sedai but her right to the title of Daughter-Heir was doubted so openly. Most would have thought her quite calm, but Aviendha knew the signs. The raised chin spoke of anger; add eyes open as wide as they would go, and Elayne was a torch to overwhelm Nynaeve’s ember. Besides, Birgitte was on her toes, face like stone and eyes like fire. She did not usually mirror Elayne’s emotions, except when they were very strong.
Wrapping her fingers around the hilt of her belt knife, Aviendha readied herself to embrace saidar. She would kill the Windfinder first; the woman was not weak in the Power, and she would be dangerous. They could find others with so many ships about.

  “We seek a ter’angreal.” Except that her tone was cool, anyone who did not know her would think Elayne was absolutely serene. She faced Nesta din Reas, but she addressed everyone, perhaps especially the Windfinder. “With it, we believe we can remedy the weather. It must trouble you as much as it does the land. Baroc spoke of endless storms. You must be able to see the Dark One’s touch, the Father of Storms’ touch, on the sea just as we do on the land. With this ter’angreal, we can change that, but we cannot do it alone. It will require many women working together, perhaps a full circle of thirteen. We think those women should include Windfinders. No one else knows so much of weather, not any Aes Sedai living. That is the aid we ask.”

  Dead silence met her speech, until Dorile din Eiran said carefully, “This ter’angreal, Aes Sedai. What is it called? How does it look?”

  “It has no name, that I know,” Elayne told her. “It is a thick crystal bowl, shallow but something over two feet across, and worked inside with clouds. When it is channeled into, the clouds move—”

  “The Bowl of the Winds,” the Windfinder broke in excitedly, stepping toward Elayne as if she did not realize it. “They have the Bowl of the Winds.”

  “You truly have it?” The Wavemistress’s eyes were fixed on Elayne eagerly, and she also took an involuntary step.

  “We are looking for it,” Elayne said. “But we know it is in Ebou Dar. If it is the same—”

  “It must be,” Malin din Toral exclaimed. “By your description, it must!”

  “The Bowl of the Winds,” Dorile din Eiran breathed. “To think it would be found again after two thousand years here! It must be the Coramoor. He must have—”

  Nesta din Reas’ hands slapped together loudly. “Do I see a Wavemistress and her Windfinder, or two deckgirls at their first shipmeet?” Malin din Toral’s cheeks reddened with a proud anger, and she bent her head stiffly, pride in that as well. Twice as flushed, Dorile din Eiran bowed, touching fingertips to forehead, lips and heart.

  The Shipmistress frowned at them a moment, before going on. “Baroc, summon the other Wavemistresses who hold this port, and the First Twelve as well. With their Windfinders. And let them know you will hoist them by their toes in their own rigging if they do not hurry.” As he rose, she added, “Oh. And have tea sent down. Working out the terms of this bargain will be thirsty.”

  The old man nodded; that he might dangle Wavemistresses by their toes and that he must send tea were accepted equally. Eyeing Aviendha and the others, he sauntered out with that rolling walk. She changed her opinion when she saw his eyes close up. It might have been a fatal mistake to kill the Windfinder first.

  Someone must have been awaiting orders of the sort, because Baroc was only gone moments before a slim, pretty young man with a single thin ring in each ear entered carrying a wooden tray that bore a square blue-glazed teapot with a golden handle and large blue cups of thick pottery. Nesta din Reas waved him out—“He will spread enough tales as it is, without hearing what he should not,” she said when he was gone—and directed Birgitte to pour. Which she did, to Aviendha’s surprise, and maybe her own.

  The Shipmistress settled Elayne and Nynaeve in chairs at one end of the table, apparently intent on beginning her bargaining. Aviendha refused a chair—at the other end of the table—but Birgitte took one, swinging the arm out, then latching it back when she was seated. The Wavemistress and the Windfinder were excluded from that discussion, too, if discussion it could be called. The words were too low to hear, but Nesta din Reas emphasized everything she said with a finger driven like a spear, Elayne had her chin so high she seemed to be looking down her nose, and if Nynaeve for once was managing to keep her face calm, she seemed to be trying to climb her own braid.

  “If it pleases the Light, I will speak with both of you,” Malin din Toral said, looking from Aviendha to Birgitte, “but I think I must hear your story first.” Birgitte began to look alarmed as the woman sat down across from her.

  “Which means I can speak first with you, if it pleases the Light,” Dorile din Eiran told Aviendha. “I have read of the Aiel. If it pleases you, tell me, if an Aiel woman must kill a man every day, how are there any men left among you?”

  Aviendha did her best not to stare. How could the woman believe such nonsense?

  “When did you live among us?” Malin din Toral said over her teacup at the near end of the table. Birgitte was leaning away from her as though she wanted to climb over the back of the chair.

  At the far end of the table, Nesta din Reas’ voice rose for a moment. “. . . came to me, not I to you. That sets the basis for our bargain, even if you are Aes Sedai.”

  Slipping into the room, Baroc paused between Aviendha and Birgitte. “It seems your shoreboat departed as soon as you came below, but have no worry; Windrunner has boats to put you on the shore.” Walking on down the cabin, he took a chair below Elayne and Nynaeve and joined right in. When they looked at whichever was speaking, the other could observe them unnoticed. They had lost an advantage, one they needed. “Of course the bargain is on our terms,” he said in tones of disbelief that it could be otherwise, while the Shipmistress studied Elayne and Nynaeve as a woman might two goats she meant to skin for a feast. Baroc’s smile was almost fatherly. “Who asks must of course pay highest.”

  “But you must have lived among us to know those ancient oaths,” Malin din Toral insisted.

  “Are you well, Aviendha?” Dorile din Eiran asked. “Even here, the motion of a ship sometimes affects shorefolk—No? And my questions do not offend? Then tell me. Do Aiel women truly tie a man down before you—I mean, when you and he—when you—” Cheeks reddened, she broke off with a weak smile. “Are many Aiel women as strong in the One Power as you?”

  It was not the Windfinder’s foolish fumbling about that had made the blood drain from Aviendha’s face, or that Birgitte appeared ready to run once she could manage to unlatch the chair arm again, or even that Nynaeve and Elayne were apparently discovering they were two bright-eyed girls at a fair, in the hands of well-seasoned traders. They would all blame her, and rightly. She was the one who had said if they could not take the ter’angreal back to Egwene and the other Aes Sedai once found, why not secure these Sea Folk women they spoke of? Time could not be wasted, waiting for Egwene al’Vere to say they could return. They would blame her, and she would meet her toh, but she was remembering the boats she had seen on the deck, stacked upside down atop one another. Boats without any shelter on board. They would blame her, but whatever debt she owed she was going to repay a thousandfold in shame by the time she was taken across seven or eight miles of water in an open boat.

  “Do you have a bucket?” she asked the Windfinder faintly.

  CHAPTER

  14

  White Plumes

  The Silver Circuit was misnamed at first glance, but Ebou Dar liked grand names, and sometimes it seemed that the worse they fit, the better. The grimiest tavern Mat had seen in the city, smelling of very old fish, bore the name of The Queen’s Glory in Radiance, while The Golden Crown of Heaven graced a dim hole across the river in the Rahad with only a blue door to mark it, where black stains from old knife fights splotched the grimy floor. The Silver Circuit was for racing horses.

  Removing his hat, he fanned himself with the broad brim, and went so far as to loosen the black silk scarf he wore to hide the scar around his neck. The morning air shimmered with heat already, yet crowds packed the two long earthen banks that flanked the course where the horse would run up and back. That was all there was to the Silver Circuit. The murmur of voices almost drowned out the cries of the gulls overhead. There was no charge to watch, so saltworkers in the white vest of their guild and gaunt-faced farmers who had fled from the Dragonsworn inland rubbed shoulders wi
th ragged Taraboners wearing transparent veils across their thick mustaches, weavers in vests with vertical stripes, printers in horizontal stripes and dyers with hands stained to the elbow. The unrelieved black of Amadician countrymen, buttoned to the neck though the wearers seemed about to sweat to death, stood alongside Murandian village dresses with long colorful aprons so narrow they must be only for show, and even a handful of copper-skinned Domani, the men in short coats if they wore one, the women in wool or linen so thin it clung like silk. There were apprentices, and laborers from the docks and warehouses, tanners who had a small space around them in the crowd because of the smell of their work, and filthy-faced street children watched closely because they would steal whatever they could lay hand to. There was little silver among the working people, though.

  All of them were above the thick hemp ropes strung on posts. Below was for those who did have silver, and gold; the well-born, the well-dressed and the well-to-do. Smug menservants poured punch into silver cups for their masters, fluttery maids waved feathered fans to cool their mistresses, and there was even a capering fool with white-painted face and jingling brass bells on his black-and-white hat and coat. Haughty men in high-crowned velvet hats strutted with slender swords on their hips, their hair brushing silk coats slung across their shoulders and held by gold or silver chains between the narrow, embroidered lapels. Some of the women had hair shorter than the men and some longer, arranged in as many ways as there were women; they wore wide hats with plumes or sometimes fine netting to obscure their faces, and gowns usually cut to show bosom whether in the local style or from elsewhere. The nobles, beneath brightly colored parasols, glittered with rings and earrings, necklaces and bracelets in gold and ivory and fine gems as they stared down their noses at everyone else. Well-fed merchants and moneylenders, with just a touch of lace and perhaps one pin or a ring bearing a fat polished stone, humbly bowed or curtsied to their betters, who very likely owed them vast sums. Fortunes changed hands at the Silver Circuit, and not just in wagers. It was said lives and honor changed hands, too, below the ropes.